Soon-to-be-released comic adaptation Kick-Ass 2 came in for a kicking today when star Jim Carrey told his Twitter followers that he can no longer support it. The actor, who was such a fan of the first film that he dressed as its hero for a TV interview, said “My apologies to others involved with the film. I am not ashamed of it but recent events have caused a change in my heart.”
He was referring, he said, to the massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school, where 26 children and six adults were fatally shot by a gunman who subsequently killed himself. Carrey has long been an advocate of gun control and was pleased that his character in the film refuses to use guns, but has now intimated his concern that onscreen shootings might inspire real life acts of violence.
The film's writer and producer, Mark Millar, expressed bafflement at Carrey's decision to speak out because filming was completed 18 months ago, with the intervening time having been spent on post-production. He also stressed that it's natural for action movies to contain action. "Like Jim, I'm horrified by real-life violence (even though I'm Scottish), but Kick-Ass 2 isn't a documentary." He emphasised that, in the tradition of directors like Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino, his work focuses on the consequences of violence rather than trivialising it.
"I've never quite bought the notion that violence in fiction leads to violence in real-life any more than Harry Potter casting a spell creates more Boy Wizards in real-life... our audience is smart enough to know they're all pretending," he said.
